June 2012

June 30, 2012

With the arrest of Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, one of the alleged dispatchers at the Karachi control room directing the nine November, 26, 2008 Mumbai attackers, we now have in custody all three key players. The other two being Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from that day of the carnage, and David Coleman Headley, a key reconnaissance man and plotter.

Essentially the planning-dispatching-executing circle is complete with Jundal, an Indian national who allegedly became an important player within the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, now revealing details of the plot to the Indian authorities.

While Kasab is sentenced to death, Headley, who pleaded guilty to all 12 counts, is awaiting formal sentencing. Both the death penalty and extradition to India were taken off the table by the US prosecutors as part of a plea bargain with Headley in exchange for a guilty plea and full cooperation.

Jundal’s arrest on June 21 after his reportedly difficult extradition from Saudi Arabia has reinvigorated India’s case that the Mumbai terrorist attacks could not have happened without some sort of state involvement in Pakistan. The country’s Home Minister P. Chidambaram has been specifically quoted as saying that the control room used to direct the attackers “could not have been established without some kind of state support."

Chidambaram has also said that Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed, who carries a US bounty of $10 million now, was also likely present in the control room at the time of the attacks.

The 30-year-old Jundal hails from Beed district in the state of Maharashtra in western India and could become an important source for New Delhi as it goes about reviving its assertion that the Mumbai attacks were more than just an operation carried out by the Lashkar.

It is in this context that Chidambaram is once again asking the United States to extradite Headley. He has said India will discuss the matter with the US. This is notwithstanding the fact that Headley was given a no extradition commitment as part of his plea bargain.

I have been trying for months to get some specifics from the US government here in Chicago whether there would be any circumstances under which that deal with Headley may be revoked to clear the way for his extradition. My sense from the very little information I have is that it is unlikely to happen. Perhaps as a compromise the US may allow Indian investigators to question Headley one more time. This is my educated guess which has no basis in any official indication. My general sense from talking to US prosecutors has been that Headley has lived up to his commitment of full cooperation that would ensure that he is not extradited.

Is it possible that larger bilateral relations between India and the US could weigh on the strictly legal aspect of the case and indeed lead to the revocation of the deal with Headley? I suppose it is. However, as of now I have no reason to believe that Jundal’s arrest would add extra urgency to that process.

Since Headley’s conviction stems from the killings of six US citizens who were among those who died in Mumbai, not to mention the fact that he is a US citizen himself, it would be extraordinary if he was indeed extradited to India. The deaths of the American citizens give the US primacy over Headley’s fate.

Chidambaram has also been quoted as saying that he is confident that Headley would receive a long sentence. However, on March 18, 2010, in an official release the US department of Justice had said, “Regarding sentencing, which will be deferred until after the conclusion of Headley’s cooperation, the plea agreement calculates an anticipated advisory sentencing guideline of life imprisonment. Provided that Headley continues to provide full and truthful cooperation, the government will ask the court to grant an unspecified departure from the sentencing guidelines which will be solely up to the court to decide.”

“An unspecified departure from the sentencing” is legalese for some leniency in exchange for his cooperation. So Chidambaram’s confidence could turn out to be misplaced. At the time of the trial I kept hearing at least 15 to 25 years as the likely quantum but then who knows?

June 29, 2012

The late planetary scientist and astronomer Dr. Tom Gehrels, (left in 1974 and right in 2011)

My mind has felt like a bowl of intergalactic soup since last night when I chanced upon a piece in Discovery on NASA’s Voyager mission. Although he was not directly connected with the Voyager mission, one name that kept bubbling up that soup was that of the late distinguished planetary scientist and astronomer Dr. Tom Gehrels.

My reminiscence about Dr. Gehrels specifically took me back to 1978 (or was it 1979?) when he was visiting my hometown Ahmedabad’s Physical research Laboratory (PRL) where he was a lifetime fellow. I was about 17 (or 18) and, in retrospect, a fully certifiable astronomy nerd. I fixed up an appointment with Dr. Gehrels on a whim after hearing a lecture by him. I remember telling him that I had a few questions about the Pioneer mission, which predated the Voyager mission and on which he had a key role as the Principal Investigator for the Imaging Photoplarimeter. Of course, I did not know any of this when I sought a meeting with him. For me the the trigger was a fascinating animation that he showed during his lecture about the Pioneer flybys of Saturn. The actual flyby happened only 1979.

If Dr. Gehrels was amused at the sight of a teenager dressed in a shirt tucked inside a trousers with a pair of neatly polished shoes asking for his time, he did not show it. There was not a hint of condescension in his manners. He asked my brother Manoj, another friend Paresh and I to come to the PRL the next day. Although I had Manoj and Paresh with me, I had arrogated to myself the role of the principal interlocutor with Dr. Gehrels. The journalist in me was evidently born earlier than I had the sense to recognize it.

True to his word, Dr. Gehrels was waiting in his PRL office at the appointed time when we reached looking molested by Ahmedabad’s violent summer heat. The air-conditioning in his office was a source of great comfort. Dr. Gehrels inquired about us and what we studied. You have to bear in mind that this was perhaps for the first time in our lives that all three had to converse in English. I took the lead in answering although Manoj was the only one among us who was studying in a school where the medium of instruction was English.

Conscious that I may run out of my limited knowledge of English, I gave what must have felt like a rather abrupt introduction of our lives. I wanted to get on with my questions and I did. The one that I remember the most had to do with the Saturn flyby. I asked Dr. Gehrels why the Pioneer spacecraft would not travel through Saturn’s rings. Was it because they (NASA) feared a collision with the icy particles in the rings?, I asked. He said that was indeed one of the concerns. Close to three and half decades later I still delude myself that Dr. Gehrels’ face had registered the astounding intelligence of that question. I suspect though that in reality it was an expression of indulgence that someone who knows a lot has towards someone who knows almost nothing. Looking back it is clear to me that I was winging the conversation on a very thin air current, a habit that has continued throughout my career.

The general memory of that meeting is about a noted scientist showing the grace to spare time for three teenagers, one of whom may have come across as somewhat annoying and precocious. I don’t have to tell you who that might be.

The point is that it was Dr. Gehrels’ remarkable graciousness and encouragement during that hour-long meeting that has helped sustain my deep interest in science and physics in general and astronomy in particular all these years. An impulsive Google search last night revealed that Dr. Gehrels passed away on July 11, 2011. Had I bothered to find out about him even early last year I could have revisited him, this time dressed in reasonably hip clothes, fully conversant in English, and engaged him in a far more knowledgeable conversation.

The Pioneer 11 mission, in which he was closely involved, sent its last signal on September 30, 1995.

The Discovery piece that catapulted me towards Dr. Gehrels has some fascinating details about the Voyager mission. Prompted by the article I checked this morning on NASA’a Voyager website and found that Voyager 1, launched in 1977, remains in good health. It is now 18 billion kilometers from Earth (about 12 billion miles) and believed to be in intergalactic space. It has left our planetary system for good and is already encountering charged particles outside our solar system. It takes nearly 17 hours for the data signals from the spacecraft to reach us.

Voyager 2 is about 4 billion kilometers behind its predecessor and together they make the most distant “representatives of humanity” as NASA puts it. You can track the distance traveled by the two in real time here.

June 28, 2012

Pure capitalism is a double–edged sword that cuts and slashes on both sides to maximize profits. America likes to believe it is a land of pure capitalism. Therefore America should not complain when the sword helps as much as it harms.

That is my succinct response to the current debate fueled by electoral politics whether the Republican Party’s presidential candidate Mitt Romney is an “outsource-in-chief”. President Barack Obama’s campaign has begun to hammer Romney as someone who made millions by outsourcing American jobs to low-wage countries like China and India.

A story in the Washington Post, which says Romney’s former investment firm Bain Capital is a pioneer in outsourcing American jobs, has come in handy for the Obama campaign to project him as an outsourcer-in-chief motivated by profit over American jobs. From all indications that strategy is working effectively in swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, both once centers of American manufacturing and both hit by outsourcing of jobs.

Firing at Romney on Bain’s shoulder is a good strategy that is quite becoming of electoral politics, especially because he never tires of reminding the electorate that as a highly successful businessman he is more suited to turn America’s economy around and create more jobs. It is legitimate for the Obama campaign to tell the same electorate that during his tenure at Bain Romney sure helped create jobs but mostly outside America.

My point is not about whether the Obama campaign is being fair or even electorally smart by using this strategy. My point is that America ought to recognize that pure capitalism is unemotional and brutal capital management which by its very nature frequently runs counter to nationalistic considerations. It should not surprise anyone that pure capitalism is a monster which serves the one who rides it roughshod. Also remember that pure capitalism is great fun as long as it is on your side. Once it turns against you, it forces you to reconsider your economic philosophy.

For instance, there is considerable, and understandable, resentment among American workers that information technology jobs go so overwhelmingly to software engineers from India. So far the most popular argument in support of the H1B1 visa regime that allows US companies to bring in highly skilled engineers from India and elsewhere has been that there are not enough American engineers to fill those jobs. Lately though one hears that there are American engineers available to do the same kind of jobs but they lose out because their Indian counterparts do them at much lower wages. That is only partially true. I say partially because the H1B1 regime lays down fairly strict rules as to how much the immigrant workers on this temporary work visas ought to be paid for them to qualify to work here. The regime also strictly requires companies hiring temporary workers to prove through proper documentation that they cannot find matching workers inside America.

American companies do not bring in Indian and other software engineers out of a sense of altruism but because it continues to make perfect business sense. In other words, it is a case of a more efficient management of capital, which is at the heart of pure capitalism. Ergo, pure capitalism helps as much as it harms depending on the side you find yourself to be on. This sounds heartless because it is heartless. I told you it is unemotional. I am not for a moment suggesting that this cold and rational explanation is of any use to those who have been victims of that economy. I am merely pointing out how it works.

If the American case is that capitalism needs to have a more humane side, then they are implicitly adding a socialistic dimension to it. We know how repugnant many Americans find even the word, let alone its practice. It is time to acknowledge that over the last three decades, roughly the period during which American manufacturing jobs ended up in China, India and elsewhere in Asia, what America has witnessed is pure capitalism work at its efficient best. It is only then can one begin to dilute some aspects of pure capitalism to make it work for you. If that feels like socialism, then hold your nose and get it done. Otherwise stop complaining when the Bains of the world practice pure, unemotional, self-serving capitalism and make millions for themselves.

There is nothing like win-win capitalism because someone, somewhere always loses—it could be someone winning in China or India and someone else losing here in America. What people might be confusing win-win capitalism with is utopia. Utopia exists but in a fantasy world where everything is totally free and people are eternally in love with one another, not to mention many of them in relentless orgiastic bliss.

June 27, 2012

Indian tennis, or what passes for it, is in the grip of a weird ego crisis.

Its top two players, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, once inseparable friends, may now rush to abuse their respective rackets at the sight of each other. So the question of the two playing together in men’s doubles at the London Olympics does not even arise.

From what I understand of the convoluted ego tussles, it was Bhupathi who first refused to play if he was paired up with Paes for the Olympics men’s doubles by the All Indian Tennis Association (AITA). Bhupathi said he would play only with Rohan Bopana. That put the AITA in a quandary which it got out of by pairing the veteran Paes with a relative rookie, the 207-ranked Vishnu Vardhan.

Paes, who considers himself with some justification as first among Indian tennis equals, was stung by the choice and said he would not play with anyone ranked outside the world’s top 200. He had that choice in Somdev Devvarman, the world No 147 but Paes refused to partner with him because he is managed by a company owned by Bhupathi.

Then the AITA came up with what it thought was an ace by pairing Paes with Sania Mirza, India’s best women’s tennis player who is a two-time Grand Slam champion. The association thought Mirza was a substantial enough partner to pacify Paes. Not so fast, says Mirza .

In a letter to the AITA, a copy of which was released to the media, Mirza writes, "As an Indian woman belonging to the 21st century, what I find disillusioning is the humiliating manner in which I was put up as a bait to try and pacify one of the disgruntled stalwarts of Indian tennis."

"While I feel honoured and privileged to have been chosen to partner Leander Paes, the manner and timing of the announcement wreaks of (she means reeks of) male chauvinism where a two-time Grand Slam champion, who has been India's No.1 women's tennis player for almost a decade in singles and doubles is offered in compensation to partner one of the feuding champions purely in order to lure him into accepting to play with a men's player he does not wish to play with!" she writes.

"This kind of blatant humiliation of Indian womanhood needs to be condemned even if it comes from the highest controlling body of tennis in our country,” Mirza says. That’s a strange construct—“even if it comes from the highest controlling body of tennis in our country.” She probably means “particularly because it comes from the highest controlling body of tennis in our country.”

Her characterization of the AITA announcement offering her as Paes’ mixed doubles partner as “male chauvinism” is spot on. I hold no brief for Mirza and have more often than not described as a “legend of crashing out in round two” of most singles championships, but in this particular affair she is absolutely right. It is nothing but willful disregard of her personal standing by the AITA which decided it was okay to offer her to Paes as a pacifier.

Paes insisted on a written assurance from the AITA that Sania would play only with him in the mixed doubles and not Bhupathi. Sania wants to play with Mahesh because he is her regular partner on the mixed doubles circuit and the two recently won the French Open mixed doubles.

To her credit, Mirza has still maintained a reasonable tone by saying,"For the sake of India, I am committed to play with Leander Paes or Mahesh Bhupathi or Rohan Bopanna or Somdev Devvarman or Vishnu Vardhan or any other person that my country feels I am good enough to partner. There should never ever be a question on this although if asked, I am entitled to have my preferences. I will do everything I possibly can to win a medal for India."

If you are scratching you heads by now about who is slamming whom and who wants to be paired with whom, I can hardly blame you. I have done my best to explain the massive ego clash on display in Indian tennis.

Incidentally, all the dramatis personae here are mostly known for “crashing out” or “bowing out” in round two of all major championships around the world. It is only in the mixed categories that they enjoy some standing in world tennis.

June 26, 2012

As India is losing some of its shine as a thirsty hot free market economy, a corporation that is emblematic of free market economies is expressing its strong faith in the country.

Fizzy beverage giant Coca Cola has announced its plans to invest $5 billion in India by 2020, or over $600 million annually in the next eight years. "We plan to invest $5 billion in Indian business between now and 2020. This represents an increase of $3 billion beyond what we had previously committed to investing in this market," Coca Cola chairman and chief executive officer Muhtar Kent told the Indian media in New Delhi.

When you consider that in the decade of 2000-2010, when India leapt to the position of one of the world’s two fastest rising economies along with China, Coca Cola invested a modest $140 million a year the company’s new plan sounds like a huge vote of confidence.

There is of course no connection between Kent’s announcement and the mounting expectation that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may take over the finance ministry with its last boss Pranab Mukherjee resigning to likely become the president of India. However, it is an interesting coincidence because Singh does need a shot in the arm to overcome the global perception that India’s economic reform has been derailed by politics. I am not sure though that a 79-year-old man needs a shot of sugar-fueled carbonated water with no nutritional value.

Not that Dr. Singh has the time to pay attention to the expansion plans of individual corporations but an aide might have pointed out to him that of the $30 billion that Coca Cola plans to invest globally, one-sixth of that is being committed to India. As corporate endorsement goes I am sure Dr. Singh would be happy to take this one.

Speaking of Dr. Singh’s much speculated return to the ministry which is his natural habitat, it makes perfect economic and political sense for him to do so less than two years before the next general elections in 2014. Being prime minister does give him the bully pulpit to make some fundamental changes in the economic direction of the country. During his first defining tenure as India’s finance minister in 1991 Dr. Singh could carry out sweeping reform because he had the political will of his prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao behind him.This time around he needs his own will to reinvigorate the reform process because he is the prime minister.

Although in the larger scheme of things an investment of $5 billion by a beverage maker is not much at all, what it does is help create good PR for the country. Considering that Coke is not a drink of necessity by a mile, its strong performance does indicate that a large number of Indians has the money to throw on useless things. A free market economy needs as much of well-reasoned, sensible spending as it does impulsive, useless spending. Coke is there to lend a bottle.

June 25, 2012

I wrote the following piece for South Asia Monitor (www.southasiamonitor.org) which is a growing resource for perspectives on South Asia. I also happen to be on the its board of advisors.

Some of the elements in the piece were carried on this blog earlier.

By Mayank Chhaya

It is perhaps time to rename Pakistan Ironistan, as in a country where ironies never seem to cease.

It got rid of a Prime Minister who refused to reopen corruption cases against its President but in his place appointed someone who is himself defending bribery charges.

If that does not sum up the country’s state of affairs, try this. The newly elected Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, is a former federal Power Minister of a country in the grip of one of its worst electricity shortages. According to daily electricity generation and shortfall figures maintained by Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO), on June 21 the country experienced a shortfall of 5,559 megawatt (MW) against its demand of 18,487 MW. That represents a 30 percent shortfall during the peak summer. So crippling has the power situation been that the country’s most prosperous and fertile state, Punjab, has just witnessed violent riots over severe power outages.

It is a rare case of a country where it is hard to decide which one is more intense -- the struggle for political power or electric power?

The situation in the rest of Pakistan is no better. Ashraf was also once a federal Water Minister in a country that could just as easily plunge into a serious water crisis.

Those obvious drawbacks did nothing to stop him from rising as Pakistan’s Prime Minister at a time when the country is facing serious institutional conflicts among its executive, judicial and military leaderships.

Ashraf himself was not the first choice to replace Yousaf Raza Gilani who was disqualified by Pakistan’s Supreme Court. The man first named as President Asif Ali Zardari’s choice was Makhdoom Shahabuddin, but in a dramatic turn of events an anti-narcotics agency supervised by the Army obtained an arrest warrant against him. That ended his prospects as well Zardari’s hope of installing someone beholden to him.

There is no guarantee that Ashraf would do Zardari’s bidding but then, equally, there is no guarantee that he would not. The new Prime Minister will be expected by the Supreme Court generally and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry particularly to lean on Switzerland’s official agencies to reinvestigate the allegations that in the 1990s Zardari and his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, had stashed away $12 million which they received in bribes for granting contracts to various companies. Both strongly denied the charges, dismissing them as political vendetta.

The new Prime Minister has his own weak spot in the form of allegations that he too received kickbacks by approving Rental Power Projects, privately financed power projects, and used the money to buy property in London. As recently as in April, Raja Rental, as he is derisively called, was questioned by the National Accountability Bureau. He has dismissed the allegations as lies and those leveling them as liars.

As if all of this was not murky enough, Chief Justice Chaudhary himself is facing questions arising out of allegations against his own son Arsalan that he was a beneficiary of luxurious hospitality to the tune of about $3.7 million from Riaz Malik, one of Pakistan’s leading business tycoons, allegedly as payoff in return for influencing the outcome of criminal cases pending against Malik and his businesses before the Supreme Court. The chief justice has asserted that allegations against his son in no way influence his personal integrity as the chief justice.

Against this sordid backdrop no one can say with any degree of certainty whether the ouster of Gilani and the rise of Ashraf materially changes anything in terms of softening the standoff between the three powerful institutions. As of now it seems highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will relent on its insistence that the government write to the Swiss authorities to reopen the investigation against Zardari.

It is hard to escape the impression that this is more a battle about who has supremacy over the state of affairs in Pakistan than just one simple case of bribery. Zardari would be the happiest man as long as the larger issue continues to obscure his own more troublesome personal problem. One cannot say whether the people of Pakistan would buy the argument that the judiciary is meddling in its democratic political process or it is doing its constitutional duty but, equally, the court too stands to lose its own credibility if that perception indeed gains ground.

In the current scuffle the one major issue of Pakistan’s deeply diminished relations with United States in the aftermath of the May, 2011, Abbottabad raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, has been pushed into a corner. The bilateral relations took a turn for the worse in November last year when U.S. airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

In retaliation, Pakistan blocked the crucial military supply lines to Afghanistan that transit through the country. They still remain blocked as the two sides haggle over how much the U.S. and allies should pay for every truck that transits the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Several media reports suggest that the U.S. and allies used to pay $250 a truck before the blockade and now Pakistan is demanding as much as $5,000 per truck.

Taken together, the electricity shortages, institutional backstabbing, political volatility, rampant corruption and diplomatic debacle stack up to a nearly insurmountable wall for Pakistan. Unless there is massive nationwide reform of institutions and political culture, there appears to be no prospect of the country living up to its fundamental promise.

Unlike India, which faces many of the same challenges in terms of poor governance and corruption but is rescued by the sheer size of its economy and spread of its democracy, Pakistan remains trapped in its anachronistic power struggles among its elites.

For a semi-literate landless and unemployed Pakistani in the country’s hinterland or tribal areas living without electricity for 22 hours a day and barely any access to clean water, there is very little incentive to believe in the larger promise of equitable democracy that politicians in Islamabad make from time to time. For them there is nothing much to choose between Gilani and Ashraf or Zardari and Chaudhary. It is that disenfranchised Pakistani that the country’s leadership needs to be worried about.

June 24, 2012

This illustration by me has no relevance to the post but feels like it could

I don’t know enough physics to qualify as a physics nerd. If physics were a swanky nightclub, I would be turned away by the muscly security men even with a proper invitation and a supermodel as an arm candy. In simpler words, I have no fucking clue (NFC) about most things physics.

With this as a backdrop it is time to take note of the intensifying rumors that CERN particle physicists are preparing to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson, the ever elusive subatomic particle that gives mass to all other particles and, by implication, you and I.

The scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which as the name suggests is a large collider that collides particles at extremely high speeds to try and produce the Higgs boson, have scheduled a seminar on July 4. That’s when, according to the current buzz, the discovery of the Higgs boson could be announced. There was some indication given in December last year that the particle actually exists and may have been found. After six months of analyzing the data collected by the LHC there is expectation that we are now close to the Higgs boson.

Incidentally, the boson in the Higgs boson honors Professor Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian physicist and mathematician also celebrated for his collaborative work known as Bose-Einstein statistics and Bose-Einstein condensate. The Higgs part comes from Peter Higgs who was among those scientists who in the 1960s predicted the existence of a new particle that was named the Higgs boson.

Those who know the subject well (and that automatically excludes me and a vast majority of humanity) believe that the CERN scientists had seen signs of the particle’s existence in December but they were not yet like a jarful of fireflies.

It could be said with some literary liberty that if the Higgs field, which is somewhat like an energy field that pervades the entire universe, did not exist life as we know it would not exist. Without this invisible field inhibiting them all particles would zip around the universe at the speed of light which in turn would mean that atoms as we know it would not have formed and hence eventually everything else, including you and I, would have remained unrealized. The invisible energy field imparts these particles mass as they pass through the field. It also slows them down. That is the simplest way I can put this search in.

The discovery of the Higgs boson or the failure thereof is not likely to change anything at all in any discernible way for humanity. It would give scientists some bragging rights for having finally laid bare, even if it is for a fraction of a fleeting second, the very foundation of physics. You can be reasonably sure, for instance, that your monthly bills will not stop as a result of the Higgs boson discovery, nor will your creditors feel so munificent as to write off your debt. There is no likelihood of inexplicable improvement in your sex life because of the Higgs boson or, for that matter, a pay hike.

The only thing that will be profoundly disrupted is our entire understanding of the universe if the Higgs boson is not found. If it is indeed discovered, we would have found the final piece of what is known as the Standard Model of the universe. The Standard Model of the universe says that the universe is made up of matter consisting of four percent of atoms, 20 percent dark matter and 76 percent dark energy. What that means is that we cannot observe or fully understand 96 percent of the universe. Or as we physicists describe it, it is the NFC realm.

Incidentally, bosons are the ones that carry forces of different kinds compared to ferminos, the other subatomic particle, that constitute matter. So you may say, “May the bosons be with you.”

June 23, 2012

I can bet my vast knowledge of world cinema to assert that this must be the only instance of a woman approximating the movements of a goldfish out of water to describe her own torments.

The English subtitles capture the anguish of the woman (played by Sandhya) with unintended hilarity: “The thirst in my heart couldn’t be satiated, I am tormented like a fish without water.”

Literal translation of Hindi cinema lyrics has for long been a source of great entertainment for me. They are so overwrought that you want to speak in those terms. Sample this: “My anklets sigh with me, My anklets cry with me.” Get it? Sigh and cry and how they rhyme?

Metaphors are not only violently mixed but they are deep fried together. It is a pity because in Hindi, the song written by the ever brilliant Majrooh Sultanpuri, has his usual cadence. ‘Man ki pyaas mere man se na nikli, Aise tadpun ke haise jal bin machhli,’ Majrooh writes effortlessly weaving in the movie’s title.

The 1971 film directed by V. Shantaram, whose works I find eminently unwatchable, had the distinction of using stereophonic sound in its music. I remember visiting a relatively rich relative’s** house one evening and being treated to the magical effects of stereophonic recording. Although I was only ten years old, the relative’s son twice my age made it a point to tell me about the finer points of the new technology.

He would point at one speaker where the strings and the piano would play and then the other where the drums would play. “Can you see how they are jumping?” he would ask me. And then he would tell me to focus between the two speakers and say, “Now can you actually see the sound traveling between the two?” I could and remember feeling inordinately thrilled.

All the songs of ‘Jal Bin'..’, composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal were big hits and you can tell why even now.

The immediate provocation for today’s post has nothing to do with the song or the lyrics or the music but the goldfish literally out of water. All the flopping about and convulsing that the filmmaker uses as a juxtaposition to Sandhya’s own state of mind makes me wonder if the goldfish was harmed in the making of the song. It is obvious that the fish’s tossing and turning, at one point in slow motion to accentuate its agony, was shot separately and then was patched into the main song. So it is conceivable that the goldfish was slipped right back into a bowl or the fountain-pond to avert death.

Experts say that a goldfish out of water can survive for a considerable length of time as long its gills are moist because they can extract oxygen from the moisture. There are many recorded cases where it has survived several hours. So perhaps my concern about this particular goldfish is overstated. In any case, it has been over four decades since the movie and one can be reasonably sure that the goldfish is long dead.

On a separate note the way Sandhya is dancing in the song it seems as if some of the frames were lost in editing. It is a case of jump cuts before the editing technique was invented. Her dancing reminds me so much of this famous scene from the iconic sitcom ‘Seinfeld’ involving Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) whose dancing was often a subject of both humor and embarrassment for her friends and colleagues.

Where else but here can you jump from Sandhya to Julia Louis-Dreyfus via a goldfish?

June 22, 2012

If I am not careful, some of my readers might think that my occasional expressions of derision and ridicule of royalties everywhere betray deeper antipathies born out of a commoner’s resentment. But as I have frequently said, one is better off getting rid of bile than preserving it. Today’s post is merely one more example of that.

The Guardian reports that William, the Duke of Cambridge and second in line to the British throne, is 10 million pounds richer as he turned 30 yesterday. He is now entitled to a substantial part of his mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales’s estate. The newspaper’s quick calculation puts that fortune at about 10 million pounds or about 15 million dollars. William and his younger brother Harry were left an equal amount in Diana’s will. Harry will get his in September, 2014 when he turns 30.

William’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, has already gifted him the ‘Order of the Thistle’, Scotland’s highest honor as part of her birthday gift. It is the conferment of these completely arbitrary titles that cause a chuckle or two in me. How are these titles arrived at? And who designs insignias to illustrate such titles? These are the questions that trouble me.

I have this vision of the queen sitting by the window of her private quarter early morning, spending half an hour every week to make up these titles. Once a title is arrived at, she then summons the chief of the royal foundry to get a new insignia designed and its master version forged. Remember that none of this is true. I am making it all up, quite like these orders and titles and honors.

When I read about William’s “Order of the Thistle” I was reminded of an exchange between King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) from one of my all time favorite movies ‘Becket’. This is how the exchange goes:

King Henry II: Have you any idea how much trouble I took to make you noble?

Thomas Becket: I think so; I recall, you pointed a finger and said, "Thomas Becket, you are noble." The Queen and your mother became very agitated.

That’s how royalties everywhere do things. They just point a finger and say whatever it is that they want done. However, the prestige, the pomp, the circumstance that follow the conferment are all real. So is the fortune that he William stands to inherit. Royalty is a neat little scheme out of which most of the world is cleverly excluded.

I remember a distant grand uncle was given a title that the British Raj invented just to make the natives feel important. He was given the title of ‘Rai Bahadur’. ‘Bahadur’ means brave and someone of strong character and integrity. Rai is just an honorific. As a child I thought Rai Bahadur was that uncle’s real name. It turned out he had a different real name which I will not mention here because he is no longer around to answer me.

With that I have taken care of my bile.

P.S.: It is not just that these royal titles are made up. We do live in a made up world.

June 21, 2012

The Dalai Lama with Aung Saan Suu Kyi in London on June 19 (Pic: Jeremy Russell for the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama—www.dalailama.com)

If China were a giant PC, its hard drive would heat up very rapidly while trying to process a private meeting between the Dalai Lama and Aung Saan Suu Kyi in London on June 19. Unless,of course, it is a PC using a state-of-the-art flash drive-based memory system in which case the processing would be calmer. (It is a labored metaphor but once formed I have to use it).

The point is in choosing to meet the Dalai Lama, or “a jackal in a monk’s clothing” as he is better known as in Beijing, the Burmese/Myanmarese leader displayed refreshing disregard for its obvious implications whenever she chooses to engage with China. And engage she will have to considering Beijing’s looming presence over her country’s future. She knows she is no longer just a dissident but a fast evolving political figure who has all the freedoms and restraints of a national politician having to balance conflicting priorities.

For China, strongly disapproving anyone of consequence from anywhere in the world who meets the Dalai Lama is part of its diplomatic reflex action. When it comes to the Dalai Lama everything China does or says is involuntary action. Notwithstanding that, Suu Kyi’s meeting with him is fraught with some real consequence for the recently freed leader as she goes about consolidating her and her National League for Democracy party’s position in Myanmar.

One can be sure that whenever she goes to Beijing or meets any Chinese of political influence, she will be directly or indirectly reminded of the meeting. It is a good thing that the 67-year-old Nobel Peace laureate has not built her reputation on the basis of expedient compromise. Nevertheless, she will discover that meeting the Dalai Lama is never without its attendant cost.

On the other hand, China also knows that if she rises to a position of her country’s leadership it will have to do business with her because Beijing does have strong economic and military/strategic interests in Myanmar. It cannot afford to remain permanently annoyed over one meeting between the one Beijing loves to hate and the one it would hate to hate.

Those who follow Myanmar closely say that its President Thein Sein is taking care to ensure that his country does not remain trapped in the Chinese orbit. He has to expand relations with other important countries in the region such as the obvious one in India but even the United States. He has to hedge his bets.

As for this meeting, there was just no way it could not have taken place. It had that powerful inevitability about it.